Pa-hay-okee Overlook Trail

Everglades National Park

The Pa-hay-okee Overlook Trail is a short interpretive loop trail which showcases the vast saw grass prairie of the Everglades. Pa-hay-okee is actually a seminole phrase which means "grassy waters". This terrain has remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years and was home to native tribes including the Calusa and Miccosukee Indians.

Magnolia lines the boardwalk near the trailhead. Magnolia grows in areas too wet for most trees and is a very resilient plant

In the winter, cypress trees will lose their leaves causing them to go 'bald', thus the name Bald Cypress Trees. They lose their leaves not due to the cold, but due to the lack of water available during the winter dry season

Seen here from the Pa-hay-okee Overlook, this is the 8-mile wide Shark River Slough. The slough is a slow moving river of grass which heads towards the Gulf

Hardwood Hammock and Bayhead Island ecosystems take root within the wide slough. The slow moving waters have shaped these islands over hundreds of years

The beautiful Pa-hay-okee, seen here as the Calusa and Miccosukee would have viewed it hundreds of years ago